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I’ve been watching the Tiny Homes Movement with more than just a little envy. There’s a part of me which adores the idea of minimalist living. Dumping all the dreck and flotsam collected during the average life, learning to live with just enough, thumbing the nose at our mass-consumption culture which demands we by more, More, MORE, MOAR!!!! on a daily basis.

It’s also tied heavily into the survivalist mentality – those who eschew living on the grid and are determined to comfortably survive -on their own terms- in the event of a zombie apocalypse or dictatorial regime.

A series of pictures from the tiny home category, coupled with the recent US Holiday celebrating our treason against the crown of Mother England, have me wandering down the fuzzy memory pathways.

That’s so 70’s. To me, anyway.

Here comes the fuzzy memory bit…

Back in my formative growing up years, my family was 6+ – 2 parents, 4 kids & a full-grown Samoyed dog. Each summer, we had camping obligations, starting with a week long outing over Memorial Day, anther week long thing over the 4th, an extended weekend for the yearly family reunion, random, stealth-outs through the rest of summer, usually culminating in a final, extra-long weekend for Labor day.

Each obligation entailed packing the entire family up, relocating to a distant point on the compass in the middle of nowhere, and huddling around a burning fire while trying to keep the bugs from consuming ourselves in entirety.

Now, I’m just assuming here, but back in the 70’s – you didn’t buy a full-blown mobile home on a cop’s salary, especially if said cop had to also pay for a house, 4 kids, wife & dog. And though we did have an old VW Van for shorter hops involving the entire family, all those bodies didn’t leave a whole lotta room in the van for all the aforementioned stuff.

So enter…the old school bus.

Not sure how my Dad managed to procure an old school bus…but with a little planning, the right tools, and a LOT of sweat-equity, he managed to turn that old bus into a veritable palace that not only slept the 6 of us and the dog, but had enough cubbies and cubicles for all our stuff AND a reasonable facsimile of the perfectly good house we’d just abandoned.

An almost-full service kitchen (‘fridge, stove, oven, limited countertops, space for dishes & cooking stuff, and a sink), a table which sat the six of us, a radio, and a TOILET.

Granted, you had to ‘flush’ it with a ladle of water…but it was still a little room you went to and did…business.

Us kids slept in the way back of the bus on bunk beds. The parents converted the dining table into their bed at night. We even had a small closet to store any clothing that required hanging up to remain presentable.